Eve Samples: This city wants to pay part of your Uber fare ... but is that a good thing?

Next time you hail an Uber ride in Stuart, you might end up paying as much as 25 percent less. The city of Stuart is considering a program where the city subsidizes part of the cost of Uber rides that are within city limits. LIDIA DINKOVA/TCPALM
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A driver heads south on Southwest Osceola Street on Jan. 21, 2016, in downtown Stuart. The city is considering paying for part of the cost of Uber rides that stay within city limits as a way to provide another mobility option and to decrease the need for downtown parking.(Photo: XAVIER MASCAREÑAS/TCPALM)Buy Photo

When I was growing up in North Miami, my friends and I had a few options for getting around town before we were of legal driving age:

We could hitch a ride from our parents; we could catch the public bus; or we could flag down a "jitney," one of the privately operated mini-buses that traveled main roads.

Taxis were out of the question. Cab fare was not practical on our part-time wages.

And Uber, of course, was just a glimmer in founder Travis Kalanick's eye.

Now, the mobile ride-sharing service is positioning itself as bonafide form of public transportation, at government-subsidized rates that even teenagers could afford.

The Stuart City Commission agreed last week to consider a pilot program that would put public money into Uber fares rather than into public buses or trams.

Here's how it would work:

Uber would provide a 20-25 percent discount on trips within the city limits. The city would then subsidize the retail rate charged by Uber drivers by the same amount.

"Maybe people would feel like they are getting a lot more for this ... versus the empty buses that are riding around town," City Commissioner Jeffrey Krauskopf said at Monday's commission meeting, as reported by TCPalm's Lidia Dinkova.

Sounds like a rational, market-based solution, right?

But before Stuart starts subsidizing Uber rides for every iPhone-wielding traveler in the city, it's worth pondering the long-term effects.

A Slate article published in December examined how cities on the outskirts of Tampa and Oakland, California, have tried similar pilot projects with ride-hailing services. Cash-strapped public transit agencies have embraced such programs as a way to save money and provide better service, particularly for less-traveled routes (which tend to be the most expensive).

Uber and other ride-sharing services make a lot of sense as a complement to public transit. The perils lie in thinking of them as a replacement for it.

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How stable are these relatively young rider-sharing companies? Does it make sense to invest in them, rather than publicly owned transit services that will be needed for decades to come?

Will today's bargain Uber fares rise steeply in the future, as some analysts have predicted, eventually pricing out lower-income residents (even at subsidized rates), or requiring more expensive subsidies?

What about travelers who don't have smartphones, which are required to hail a car from Uber?

Will riders feel as safe in an Uber driver's private car as they would on a public bus?

Will investing in Uber, rather than higher-capacity transit vehicles, contribute to congestion on our roads?

Would government agencies have access to ridership information, or would Uber keep it private (as it has in some markets)?

How much local control would local government officials have over the service?

These are the questions for Stuart leaders to weigh publicly before they make a decision.

Big money is at stake here. Americans spent $15 billion in 2014 on public transportation fares in the 850 public transit agencies that share data with the Federal Transit Administration, Bloomberg reported in August.

That, of course, is why Uber and its competitor, Lyft, want to get in on the public transit business.

None of this is to say publicly subsidized Uber trips are a bad idea for Stuart.

Less-densely developed areas like the Treasure Coast tend to be more expensive places to run public transit. The one-year partnership with Uber would cost about $20,000 and would cover the entire city. Compare that with $200,000 to run Stuart's downtown tram, which only runs in the downtown area.

If a partnership with Uber improves service and saves taxpayers money, then it's something Stuart commissioners must seriously consider.

But they should do so with their eyes wide open to the possibility that they may be relinquishing long-term control over the future of public transportation.

Eve Samples is opinion and audience engagement editor for Treasure Coast Newspapers. Contact her at 772-221-4217 or eve.samples@tcpalm.com. Follow her on Twitter @EveSamples.